DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

November 10, 2026November 5, 2026

Evidence for God – Part 5

5- Mind Exists

Did the universe originate with matter or with a Mind? If matter was the starting point for all things, then we are simply matter. In that case, how can we have a mind? Are our minds nothing but our brain cells? Could unguided matter create our minds? Do we merely imagine that we have minds?

It seems more reasonable that a Mind was the starting point for all things. In that case, the Mind initiated the matter that formed the entire cosmos, all living things, and us. That Mind gave us minds, because only a Mind can create a mind.

The human mind has two parts working together. The physical part is what we call the brain. Materialists claim the brain is all there is. The brain handles material processes, including sensory and motor functions. It also influences emotions and memory. The other part, the soul, is not made of material substance. The soul performs abstract reasoning, makes moral choices, and exhibits free will. It is what makes us different from all other animals.

This non-material part of our mind works in conjunction with the physical brain. The brain controls our physical movements, but the soul primarily influences what we decide to do. Reasoning and decision-making are activities of the soul, but brain damage can severely affect our ability to reason and make moral choices.

The physical and spiritual aspects of our minds must work together to make us fully functioning humans. For that reason, a person who experiences brain damage from stroke, brain cancer, severe brain injury, Alzheimer’s, or other causes struggles with abstract reasoning and decision-making. Dementia also causes memory loss, reduced sensory awareness, and impaired motor skills, and it affects our emotions. However, physical factors such as fatigue and illness can also impact those things.

It’s essential to understand that despite physical impairments, whether temporary or permanent, we remain the same person with the same soul. For those suffering from dementia, regardless of its cause, loved ones must realize that the soul, the spiritual part of that person, is still present. Brain malfunction can make a person seem very different, but the person’s soul is still present. We are all made in God’s image, and God is spirit, not physical (John 4:24). We are spirits functioning within a physical body. In this life, a damaged brain can limit a person’s functioning. However, we can thank God that the soul is freed from the brain at the moment of death, and those who have accepted the salvation Jesus offers will spend a blissful eternity with Him.

Meet us at the International Conference on Missions at America’s Center in St. Louis, November 12-14, 2026, booth 1223 in the Exhibit Hall.

November 9, 2026November 10, 2026

Evidence for God – Part 4

4- A Fine-Tuned Genetic Code Exists

Cell reproduction requires replicating the DNA within those cells. RNA facilitates DNA replication using 64 different codons (three-letter “words”), the fundamental units of the genetic code. Of those, 61 specify amino acids that build proteins, and the other three are stop codons that mark the termination point of protein synthesis. Nature has around 500 amino acids, but living cells use only a carefully selected 20. With 64 codons, “a marvel of molecular logic” selects the proper amino acids. That coding system shows evidence of a conscious, deliberate, intelligent agent guiding the creation of the genetic code.

The genetic code in living cells also seems to be beautifully fine-tuned to protect cells from mutations during replication. As reported by Dr. Jonathan McLatchie, the statistical rarity of the conventional genetic code is 1 in 2 billion. That doesn’t seem like a chance occurrence. But the code shows additional fine-tuning, including being written to reduce the impact of frameshift mutations. It’s beyond the scope of this article to explain frameshift mutations, but the point is that the 64-to-20 mapping system is designed to minimize the number of amino acids translated from a frameshifted transcript before a stop codon halts the process.

Since the 1980s, scientists have discovered variations in the genetic code among different life forms. Not all living things have the exact same code. Darwin’s theory calls for “universal common descent” (UCD) from a single ancestor. Darwin didn’t know about the genetic code, but we now know that changing it would alter the proteins produced, leading to serious harm and most likely death. That seems to nullify the idea of UCD.

Dr. McLatchie wrote: “Why is the genetic code the way it is, and how did it come to be? That was asked over 50 years ago, at the dawn of molecular biology, (and) might remain pertinent even in another 50 years.” Until scientists consider the possibility of an intelligent Agent who designed the genetic code, that question will never be answered. Why not at least consider the possibility that these signs of fine-tuning in the genetic code are not merely accidental but the product of design? Modern science refuses to do that because design requires an intelligent Designer.

Reference: Dr. Jonathan McLatchie on scienceandculture.com, May 4-7, 2026

Meet us at the International Conference on Missions at America’s Center in St. Louis, November 12-14, 2026, booth 1223 in the Exhibit Hall.

November 6, 2026November 4, 2026

Evidence for God – Part 3

3- Life Exists

An Associated Press headline reads, “Scientists Believe Artificial Life Will Be Possible in 3 to 10 Years.” The article is dated August 20, 2007. The report discusses a new scientific discipline known as synthetic biology, which aims to create life in the laboratory.

Two of the pioneers in synthetic biology were Jack Szostak and the late Craig Venter. Szostak’s team took a bottom-up approach to building artificial life forms, aiming to assemble biomolecular building blocks step by step until they had a living cell. Venter’s team took the top-down approach, trying to re-engineer existing cells by changing the DNA to create novel forms of life. Neither team has achieved the ultimate goal of creating artificial life.

The AP article said there are three major hurdles to creating artificial life. First, you need a container or cell membrane. It serves as a protective wall, keeping the materials required for life inside while keeping harmful molecules out. Living cells must have that. Second, you need a genetic system that controls all cell functions. This system has to allow the cell to mutate in response to the environment and, very importantly, to reproduce. Third, you need a metabolic system. The cell must be able to take raw materials from the environment and convert them into energy to power itself.

Those three hurdles challenge scientists today. If scientists ever overcome those barriers and create fully synthetic artificial life, what will they have proven? Will they have shown that life arises spontaneously from non-life? No. They will have proven that great intelligence, under carefully controlled conditions, can turn non-living matter into life-forms. They will have shown that life is not an accident but the creation of an intelligent being. That is what the Bible has said for thousands of years.

Even if scientists manage to create a living cell, they will NOT have created it from nothing. They will use the materials (and intelligence) God has given us. It reminds me of the old story about a scientist who challenged God, saying that it was no big deal to create a man from the dust of the ground. God said, “Go ahead and do it.” The scientist grabbed a handful of dust, and God interrupted him, saying, “Wait a minute! Make your own dust.”

Meet us at the International Conference on Missions at America’s Center in St. Louis, November 12-14, 2026, booth 1223 in the Exhibit Hall.

November 5, 2026November 4, 2026

Evidence for God – Part 2

2- A Fine-Tuned Universe Exists

If you want to bake a cake, you need the right ingredients in the right amounts, mixed correctly, and baked at the right temperature for the exact length of time. A universe is far more complex than a cake. Therefore, building a universe would require far greater precision, with many more ingredients in the right amounts, assembled in the right sequence, over the exact amount of time. Every factor must be precisely fine-tuned.

Scientists recognize that the universe requires fine-tuning for complex life to exist. The number of factors that must be fine-tuned is vast, but five essential ones are these:

Gravitational Force Constant – This force holds us on the ground instead of flying off into space. More than that, it holds the planet together and makes it round. It also holds the Moon in orbit around the Earth and the planets in orbit around the Sun. It holds together the Milky Way and all other galaxies. This force must be strong enough to form stars and planets, but if it were too strong, stars would burn out quickly, and no planets would form.

Electromagnetic Force Constant – This force holds atoms together. It must be just right for chemical bonds to form, creating molecules that make up everything, including our bodies.

Strong Nuclear Force Constant – This force holds together the protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms. It must be just right to form stable atoms.

Weak Nuclear Force Constant – This force regulates radioactive decay and must be precisely correct to form stars such as our Sun.

Cosmological Constant – This force controls the universe’s expansion speed, balancing gravity’s attractive pull with the repulsive force driving space to expand. It must be extremely precise to prevent the universe from flying apart or collapsing on itself.

A properly “baked” universe requires that all of these constants and many more parameters be just right. The chance of all of them coming together by accident is beyond impossible. Fine-tuning the universe requires intelligent planning, and it could not have happened by accident. Realizing that and not wanting to consider a Designer, scientists have devised a hypothesis to explain the universe’s fine-tuning. It is the theory of multiple universes, or the multiverse theory. It suggests there must be an almost infinite number of universes with different parameters, and we just happen to live in the one that got everything right. This idea has many problems, but we can’t even call it science because it lacks evidence and can’t be tested.

On the other hand, plenty of evidence suggests that God created the universe. Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Meet us at the International Conference on Missions at America’s Center in St. Louis, November 12-14, 2026, booth 1223 in the Exhibit Hall.

November 4, 2026November 4, 2026

Evidence for God – Part 1

1-Matter, Energy, Space, and Time Exist

If someone tells you God doesn’t exist, ask: if there is no God, why is there anything at all? After many years, even centuries, of insisting that the universe is eternal and had no beginning, scientists finally surrendered to the strong evidence that the universe had a beginning. There was once no time, space, or matter/energy. Nothing existed.

The beginning is commonly known as the Big Bang, but a better name is the Cosmic Creation Event. If nothing existed before, how did the universe come into existence? Whatever explanation you suggest, it must be outside of space and time and immaterial. Those things could not have created themselves.

That leads to the question: “If nothing existed before the Cosmic Creation Event or Big Bang, why does anything exist now?” Whatever caused the beginning would have to be outside of time and space and immaterial—something unseen. What could that be? “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3). The God described in the Bible perfectly matches the requirements for the ultimate cause.

Many of today’s scientists insist that nothing exists beyond the natural things they can measure. Astronomer Carl Sagan famously said, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” Since the supernatural is beyond science’s limited boundaries, science can never answer these two questions: 1-“Why does the universe exist?” 2-“How did something come from nothing?”

The first question leads us to the second. If nothing existed before everything came into existence, “How can everything come from nothing?” If nothing existed before, how can something come from nothing with no cause? Since that does not make sense, scientists look for ways to redefine “nothing” to mean something other than absolutely nothing. But how can it be nothing if it is something, and what was the something? We suggest the answer is in Genesis 1:1.

— Roland Earnst © 2026

Meet us at the International Conference on Missions at America’s Center in St. Louis, November 12-14, 2026, booth 1223 in the Exhibit Hall.

November 3, 2026November 2, 2026

International Conference on Missions

Next week, the International Conference on Missions (ICOM) will convene in St. Louis, Missouri. This major gathering brings together churches connected with the Restoration Movement, along with missions, educational institutions, and support organizations from around the world. It will be a time to share, be inspired by outstanding speakers, and learn what is happening in evangelism today. Does God Exist? will be represented at ICOM.

In past years, the Christian Churches held the North American Christian Convention (1927-2018), and the Churches of Christ held the Tulsa Soul Winning Workshop (1977-2017). Since both of those gatherings have been discontinued, ICOM (which began in 1948) has helped fill the void, growing into a major gathering of like-minded Christians. We will be there to share the evidence for God’s existence with fellow believers, focusing on the areas listed in the picture above. It is essential for Christians to know why we believe what we believe.

If you are in the St. Louis area, we invite you to register for ICOM and stop by our booth (number 1223) in the exhibit hall. Even if you have to come from a distance, we are sure you will be inspired by the speakers and learn from the workshops and Bible study as you learn more about missions reaching the lost around the world.

The International Conference on Missions will be November 12-14, 2026, at the America’s Center in downtown St. Louis. You can learn more and register at theicom.org. Be sure to stop by our booth. We would love to see you there.

November 2, 2026November 1, 2026

AI Can Be Used for Good or Evil

Some people say that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an evil plot for robots to wipe out human existence. By preying on humanity’s ignorance, promoters of this idea hope to influence elections or enrich themselves at others’ expense. Like all human inventions, AI can be used for good or evil.

The word “intelligence” means “to have the capacity to learn.” “Artificial” means manufactured–an imitation. AI gives computers the capacity to learn, but humans provide the information and set the limits. AI is not evil and cannot, on its own, do anything its creators don’t tell it to do.

Can AI be used in a destructive way? Of course it can–like anything else humans invent. Can a truck designed to bring food or medicine to people in need also be used destructively? I recently saw a picture of a truck being used in Africa as a base for weapons, allowing soldiers to kill innocent people in a remote village. Are trucks evil? Of course not, but they can be used destructively. AI can be used for good or evil, depending on the humans who use it.

The Motivator, a journal of the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, lists five ways AI is being used to battle that debilitating illness. They include: (1) Identify people with MS years before any symptoms appear. (2) Improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis. (3) Predict the course of each person’s MS and how individuals will respond to therapies. (4) Enhance the ability of people with MS to move and communicate. (5) Speed the development of new therapies.

AI can be used not only in the medical field to save lives but also in archaeological work. AI can verify archaeological findings to support the integrity of scripture and provide evidence for the validity of scriptural references. AI is not an evil invention to take over the world. God has given humans the ability to create tools that can help or hurt. Like other tools, AI can be used for good or evil. The evil is not in the tools but in the people who use them for evil purposes.

Reference: The Motivator summer/fall issue, page 4.

October 30, 2026October 29, 2026

Flamingo Dance

Flamingos dance while they eat. That caught the attention of Victor Ortega Jimenez, an animal biomechanics and bio-inspired design scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. He noticed ripples spreading across the water around the birds as they ate and wondered why. He discovered the flamingo dance.

Research revealed that the flamingos were doing a stomping dance. The birds bob their beaks in the water, an action resembling a sewing machine needle bobbing up and down 12 times a second. This creates a vortex in the water, trapping and scooping up algae and tiny crustaceans. While they bob their beaks to create a vortex, stomping amplifies it, allowing their beaks to scoop up algae. Inside their beaks, their tongues help them filter out the food while releasing the mud and silt.

According to Jimenez, this process, including the flamingo dance, lets flamingos filter out particles as small as a single cell. He says that by emulating flamingos’ filtering process, humans could remove microplastics and other chemicals from water. It could even lead to better designs for water-desalination systems. This is another example of biomimicry, where humans can apply principles learned from animals to accomplish important tasks.

God’s design of living creatures teaches us many things. Victor Jimenez said this about his work in animal biomechanics: “Nature is always full of secrets, and I think that’s the riddle that keeps me going, trying to understand nature. That’s my way to see science: by observation and trying to be inspired and trying to solve a problem.”

Reference: sciencenews.org HERE and HERE

October 28, 2026October 27, 2026

Neurogenesis and a Healthy Brain

The human brain is a remarkable organ, capable of many things at once. While it automatically controls all of your body’s functions, it also lets you read and process this article. Our brains can be damaged by strokes, malignancies, accidents, Alzheimer’s, and many other factors. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have neurogenesis, where our brains could generate new neurons to replace damaged ones?

Many scientists have debated whether adult brains can generate new neurons. Neurons develop in the womb and, to a certain extent, during childhood and adolescence. But many thought that, after maturity, we didn’t develop new neurons, even though adult brains do form new connections between neurons and remove those that are no longer necessary.

For seven years, molecular biologist Ionut Dumitru at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has been looking for evidence of neurogenesis in adult brains. Recent research by Dumitru’s team provides strong evidence that it does occur in the adult brain’s hippocampus, a region essential to learning and memory. Earlier research showed neurogenesis in the brains of laboratory rats, but it is unethical to experiment on the brain of a living person. Dumitru and his colleagues analyzed brain cells from the hippocampi of people who had died at various ages of life. Their analysis showed that active neurogenesis occurs in the adult hippocampus. Scientists knew that hippocampal neurons could reorganize and form new connections, helping us take in new information. But this research indicates that the hippocampus may also generate new neurons.

What is the key to keeping a healthy brain? Our brains can benefit from enriching activities like socializing, being involved in a church, and learning new skills. Thinking can be tiring, and it’s hard to make the effort when artificial intelligence (AI) can automate many tasks that require deep thought. Mental challenges like reading, writing, solving puzzles, playing chess, and practicing active listening can benefit your brain health.

Physical exercise also boosts brain health and perhaps neurogenesis. Physical exercise and mental exercise through critical thinking can help keep you sharp. Even when it is easier to avoid exercise, decision-making, or reflecting on the important questions in life, do it anyway. Your body and your brain will benefit, and so can your faith. Consider the evidence for God’s existence. Study the Bible, meditate on it, and apply it to your life. It may be difficult, but it can improve your mental outlook and psychological perspective. Knowing the evidence for God’s existence and the Bible’s reliability can help you to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). We pray that our posts and printed materials will help you do that.

References: newscientist.com and insideh o ok.com

October 27, 2026October 26, 2026

God’s Intelligence and Design in Apple Trees

The plant world demonstrates God’s intelligence and design. Plants provide food for all animal life on Earth, including insects and microbes. The nutrients found in plants vary from one species or variety to another, as do the needs of the animals, insects, and microbes that feed on them. Many plant-animal relationships are symbiotic, with each depending on the other for food, pollination, or seed dispersal.

For humans, plant variations provide dietary necessities and enjoyment. Most of us know that apples come in different varieties. We know that a Jonathan and a Fuji differ in appearance and taste, but they may also differ in nutritional value. Scientific American reported that there are about 2,500 apple varieties in the United States, but only about 100 are grown commercially, and just 15 are the most popular.

Here in the Midwest, different varieties meet the needs of various animals. Deer eat some apple varieties and shun others. The nutrients in these varieties vary, and deer are programmed to eat those that benefit them. As Americans’ diets have changed, so have the kinds of apples we eat. The chemicals in our foods affect what we like.

Humans have worked with apple trees over centuries to develop apples with the desired characteristics of taste, appearance, and disease resistance. This incredibly complex system is a great example of God’s design. We can call the development of new cultivars microevolution, but they are still apples. Enjoy the varieties you prefer, knowing they are not the way they are by accident. They express God’s intelligence and design in the genetics of apple trees.